The Galaxy Builder

Chapter Five

"I was sure you'd have second thoughts, my boy," Allegorus went on expansively, "when you realized what you'd blundered into out there."

"I thought the tower was collapsing," Lafayette said. "In fact, I know it was collapsing. How'd it get put back together so quick?"

"A mere temporal faultline, Lafayette," Allegorus replied soothingly. "For a moment there, in transit to Aphasia II, you were occupying a locus in which the tower happened to be falling as a result of all the probability stresses set up by current events centering on the lab."

"What about the lab?" Lafayette demanded, feeling a sudden stab of panic. "Is it still intact?"

"No fear, lad. As I told you earlier, the volume of space-time occupied by the installation has been thoroughly stabilized; in some loci, where the tower itself has fallen, it appears to float unsupported in thin air, a circumstance which is helpful both in rendering it inaccessible to curious locals and engendering the aura of supernatural dread which you've encountered here in embryonic form."

"I just came back to get a few things straight," Lafayette demurred, but he followed his rescuer up the rubble-littered stairway. "By the way, what did I blunder into? It seems there's been a change of administration out there in the last few minutes."

"That, my dear boy, is the least of the changes which have occurred," Allegorus replied patronizingly.

"Let's hold it right here," Lafayette said, and halted. "Until we clear up a few things. And I'm definitely not your dear boy. Anytime someone starts calling me 'dear boy', I know I'm being set up for something. Why not come right out and tell me what it is? I might even volunteer. And what do you know about a big gray room where Frumpkin's keeping Daphne?"

Allegorus, three steps above, turned to face him. "Lafayette," he said almost kindly, "I have no wish to delude or confuse you, but the situation in which we find ourselves is one of the most extreme gravity, aggravated, I regret to say, by your own hasty actions since you arrived here."

"Sure, you mentioned the entropic disjunction. Now tell me what it means," Lafayette demanded grumpily. "Maybe we'd better hurry on up and just make sure the lab is still there," he suggested, edging past Allegorus. Especially the phone, he was assuring himself urgently. The phone is still working.

"You're well aware, Lafayette, of the manifold nature of what we choose to call 'reality', Allegorus pontificated. "What is not so generally realized is that the laminar paratemporal structure is more fragile than is at first evident. You found you were able, of course, quite voluntarily to shift your personal ego-focus from one plane to an adjacent one by a mere effort of will, which quite clearly is only a slight extension of the inherent faculty of all matter to coexist on multiple levels, shifting freely from one to another under pressure of circumstance. But it is just there, at the question of circumstantial pressures, that the crux of our problem lies. You see," Allegorus continued less glibly, seating himself on the step and warming to his subject, "when circumstantial forces are modified on a sufficiently wide scale, it is not the individual who slips across the interplanar gap, but the locus itself, this being the principle of the Focal Referent, a device with which you are familiar. Vast events on a cosmic scale can equally exert such pressures. And when such an event is triggered out-of-matrix by a freak occurrence, whole categories of foci can suffer dissubstantiation, while in accordance with Newton's well-known law, commensurate changes of equal and opposite scope bring unrealized foci into substantive status. It appears, Lafayette, that is what has happened. The ramifications are too complex to consider in any detail. The least of such repercussions is the realization of this bundle of defective foci known locally as Aphasia, replacing in the grand scheme the legitimate Artesian bundle, and relegating the latter to the void of that which might have been."

O'Leary jumped up. "You can't pin that one on me," he yelled. "I told you, I was just sitting on a bench with ... uh ..." Lafayette paused, frowning. "Anyway, all of a sudden it was raining, and from then on everything went to pot. I didn't do anything!"

"You see, already those identities which have been relegated to nothingness fade from your memory," Allegorus pointed out. " 'Daphne' was the name which escaped you just now, by the way. Now, I want you to think carefully, Lafayette. Precisely what did you say and do—and even think—as you sat on the bench? Try. This may be of monumental importance."

"Nothing," Lafayette said defensively. "We were just admiring the stars—"

"Any specific star?" Allegorus cut in quickly.

"No! I mean, well, maybe. It was in Boötes, near the Great Bear, Ursa Major. I was just thinking bears don't have tails, and that it looked more like a duck—or it would if it had another star for the beak."

"Lafayette," Allegorus said in a stricken tone, "you didn't do—actually do anything? I mean to say, it was no more than an idle thought, eh?"

"I just played around with the idea of moving a nearby star over to make the beak, as I said."

Allegorus leaped up and slapped his forehead with a crack like a pistol shot. "That's it! The Great Unicorn! Greenwich was right! The E.D. does emanate from the vicinity of M-51!"

As O'Leary was about to voice his impatience with the renewed spate of nonsense he had once again received in response to his request for a simple explanation, he felt the stone tip and shake beneath him. A block of rough-cut masonry fell from the ceiling, just missing his left foot. Allegorus seized his arm, tugging him upward.

"Into the lab, man!" he cried, as more stone fragments rained down and the stair bucked under him like a flatbed at speed on a gravel road.

Frumpkin's frantic face seemed to be swimming, disembodied, in gelatinous mist.

"Stop now!" he yelled. "This will avail you nothing, O'Leary! And if you expect to see Daphne again—" His voice ceased in mid-word and Lafayette caught a fleeting glimpse of Daphne's face, her hair in disorder, her eyes wide with fear. He reached for her, but there was only mist and dust and a deep rumbling underfoot. The powerful grip on his arm urged him upward.

"This is no time for wool-gathering, Lafayette!" Allegorus' resonant voice shouted as from a distance. With an effort, O'Leary focused his vision on the breaking stair-slab underfoot, and managed to leap over it before it fell. Allegorus steadied him on his feet.

"It happened again!" O'Leary shouted over the rumble of falling stone. Allegorus hurried him on.

They paused on the landing to catch their breath, fending off a rain of gravel.

"I thought you said the tower didn't really collapse!" Lafayette remonstrated.

"Oh, it collapsed, Lafayette, it collapsed indeed—in a wide belt of loci into which we have no business straying just now. I fear we've not yet felt all the repercussions of your folly."

"My folly, nothing!" Lafayette yelled. "Let's get out of here!"

"The abnormal density gradient in Boötes was first noted some decades ago," Allegorus said a bit breathlessly as Lafayette urged him up the disintegrating stair. "A clear case of a collapsed Schrodinger function on a vast scale, but as it was extragalactic in origin, nothing was done. Then, mere hours ago—but you know all about that."

"All about what!" O'Leary yelled.

."Consider for a moment, lad," Allegorus urged quietly, thrusting Lafayette toward the plank door to the lab. "Refresh your memory on the basics of quantum mechanics."

"I never got around to the higher physics," Lafayette protested. "I was too hung up with Getting Into Radio Now, and How to Speak Spanish Without Actually Trying , and Auto Repair Made Easy, and continental-style techniques of fencing, and my synthetic rubber experiments, and making sardine sandwiches."

"A full schedule, without doubt," Allegorus commiserated.

"If you knew how bad I hated those sardine sandwiches!" Lafayette said bitterly. "I liked taffy OK, up until I got myself stranded in the desert with nothing else to eat."

"Yours has been an adventurous existence," Allegorus agreed. "But just now we'd best take steps to ensure the present Adventure is not permitted to deteriorate into a Terrible Experience." Then they were through the door and in the comparative calm of the old laboratory, though the floor still vibrated underfoot. The walls, Lafayette noted, were now decorated with zebra-hide shields, voodoo masks, stone-tipped spears, a moth-eaten lion's head, and gaudy posters advertising a weekend tour to tropical Antarctica. He pointed out the changed decor to Allegorus, who waved it away. "A shift in locus of a few parameters can often produce extensive superficial modification. Not to fear, my boy. Our link to Central remains secure."

"What happened to Marv?" O'Leary inquired vaguely. "He was right behind us."

"Inasmuch as the fellow is indigenous to Aphasia II," Allegorus replied blandly, "it hardly matters."

"But he was the nearest thing to a friend I had in this nuthouse," Lafayette objected. He stepped out on the landing and looked down through dust into darkness. At that moment a despairing cry came from far below:

"Al—gimme a hand. It's me, Marv, your old sidekick—and it looks like they got me!"

"He calls you 'Al'?" Allegorus queried.

"He thinks I'm some spook," Lafayette explained briefly, then added, "I mean, they've got this superstition about some weirdo with your name who pops out of the tower every three hundred years and shakes everybody up. When I came out, they assumed I was him—or you, if you're really the one they were expecting."

Allegorus pulled at his chin. "Hmmm," he mused. "That's rather curious, actually, Lafayette, considering that this is, as I mentioned, a spurious locus. It entered on its quasi-existence less than an hour ago. Yet it has traditional memories of a long history. This suggests a meddling hand. It is a matter I shall take up with the Council on my return."

"Sure, do that," Lafayette replied absently, ducking as a dislodged stone fell past him to make a resounding smash far below, followed by yells.

"OK, Al, that did it. Thanks a bunch," Marv's now cheerful voice rang from below. "Oh-oh, here they come again!" Marv's voice died away in a wail.

"I've got to help him," Lafayette said, ducking back as other, smaller stones fell rattling down the steps.

"Stay here!" Allegorus said sharply. "The lab is the only stable fix in this entire locus, which seems to be on the verge of derealization. We'd best get back inside at once!"

"Well," Lafayette stalled, "it won't hurt to just sneak a look ..." As he took a cautious step sideways, an egg-size rock impacted heavily against his skull just above the ear; he pitched forward and tumbled down into the rolling dustcloud obscuring the stairway.

Out of the swirling dust a dim room materialized; this time Frumpkin was nowhere to be seen. But another figure, slim and graceful, hurried past.

"Daphne!" O'Leary yelled, and lunged after her. She seemed not to notice, pausing only to switch on a standing lamp which illuminated a bulky easy chair in the depths of which, Lafayette saw with a start, Frumpkin was curled asleep; he seemed to wake with a start, then waved a negligent hand in dismissal, at which Daphne turned away. Except for an expression of disappointment on her sweet face, she seemed just as O'Leary had seen her last. He started after her and tripped. When he looked up, she was gone.

"Look here, Lafayette," Frumpkin said testily, "this interference will have to stop!"

Lafayette peered into the dimness but saw nothing of Daphne; he tried to rise, but collapsed; his hands were painfully restrained, he realized as he fainted.

The dungeon, Lafayette reflected, is, as dungeons go, not too bad. No rats, and the straw is almost dry. The manacles, on the other hand—or on both hands—are large and rusty. Perhaps too large? He tried to slip his right hand through the broad iron bracelet; he winced as the scaly corrosion rasped his skin, but maintained the pressure; his hand was free, if a bit bloody—but the film of blood had helped lubricate it, no doubt. The other hand came halfway and wedged tight.

Perhaps, Lafayette told himself, thinking frantically, perhaps I left the flat-walker in this suit. I could have. I never got around to returning the gadget to Ajax, in all the excitement, and I haven't worn these britches since then, so it ought to be right here in my side pocket ... Reaching awkwardly around himself to check his left pocket, he felt a lump under the cloth, managed to get a finger into the mouth of the pocket, groped, felt cloth tear—and grasped the miniature device which had once enabled him to walk through the three-foot-thick wall of the cell under the palace of Duke Rudolfo in time to rescue the Lady Androgorre, as dear little Daph—or her alternate self—was known at Melange, a dreary locus indeed. But he had succeeded in his mission, and now, with the flat-walker in his hand (he had his old stuff back for sure now), he could do it again. But first he had to find out just where he was: It would be a pity to pass through the wall only to find himself treading air fifty feet above a paved courtyard. Perhaps if he just took a peek, without committing himself ... As to which wall to penetrate, there was no choice—not as long as he was still linked to one wall by his left wrist, which was far too tender from his earlier attempt to pull free even to contemplate submitting to that ordeal again. He turned to face the rough-hewn wall; as he fingered the tiny flexible flat-walker, his thoughts went back to the moment in Ajax's rough-hewn cavern lab when Pinchcraft, the research chief, had instructed him in the theory and practice of flat-walking ...

"... It generates a field which has the effect of modifying the spatial relationships of whatever it's attuned to, vis-à-vis the exocosm. It converts any unilinear dimension into an equivalent displacement along the perpendicular entropic axis, at the same time setting up a harmonic which produces a reciprocal epicentric effect. Or in other words, it reduces the user's physical dimensions to near zero and compensates by a corresponding increase in density in its quasi-two-dimensional state."

It sounded just as silly now as it did then, Lafayette reflected. Still, it had worked. All he had to do, he remembered clearly, was to orient the device with its long axis parallel with his own, and the smooth face aligned with the widest plane of his body. He adjusted the device as required, felt over the roughened surface, then found and pressed the small bump at its center.

Nothing changed. Lafayette stifled his disappointment. The outfit had been dry-cleaned at least once since he had last used the flat-walker, years before, and it was probably ruined. Too bad: it would have been a big help. He raised a hand to brush away a cobweb that was touching his face; the sensation of a gossamer touch persisted. Then he noticed a faint glow in front of him —emanating from the stone wall? Suddenly excited, Lafayette took a cautious step, and felt the almost impalpable sensation he remembered from the last time he had walked through solid masonry.

For a fleeting instant he glimpsed the misty gray room, and Frumpkin's angular face shouting at him, "For the last time!" Then, without transition, he was out of doors, smelling fresh air. The sudden blaze of full sunlight dazzled him. He groped, feeling his way across uneven turf.

"Well, so you decided to come back and take my offer after all!" Frodolkin's hearty voice boomed at him. Hard hands clutched Lafayette's arms. He opened his eyes, saw that he was back in the ragged clearing from which he had fled only minutes before.

"You move good, kid," Iron-Head Mike declared. "I din't even see you until you was halfway past that stretch of wall. That's good. It's gonna be a big help to you when you get to the duke's camp. When I seen the phantom arm come outa the door and haul you in, I figgered you was done for. But I guess you know a few angles after all. Mike? Help our pal to sit down and give him some eats; he looks beat."

A hearty shove against his back sent O'Leary stumbling forward until a foot hooked his ankle and he fell heavily.

"Turn over, Bub," Mike's hoarse voice commanded. "The boss wants you sitting, not laying," Lafayette turned over and sat up. In the shade now, he was able, by squinting ferociously, to see through the glare an unfamiliar patch of neglected garden stretching across to a battered but intact granite wall, above which the tower reared up, intact, but stripped of its ivy. He was in yet another locus, he realized with a stab of panic. How would he ever find Aphasia II again, where poor little Daphne was probably crying her eyes out, expecting him to appear at any moment to take her home. He stood, ignoring Mike's yell: "I ain't told you to stand up, Bub!

You wait right where you was, and I'll rustle ya a peaner butter and sardine sarnidge and some good sweet port!"

This new locus, O'Leary realized, was a close relative of the one he had just left, differing largely in that it seemed just a few stages less deteriorated. General Frodolkin, he saw, now wore a virtually intact, though faded uniform. His beard had been trimmed and the rust was gone from the sword blade. He was approaching, idly whacking at dandelion heads with the weapon. As Mike drew back a booted leg to sweep Lafayette's feet from under him, the latter dropped to a sitting position and promptly kicked Mike's knee, causing the big fellow to collapse like a condemned tenement under the wrecker's ball. As Mike snarled curses, Frodolkin came up, tsked mildly, and ordered the fellow to abstain from furthur drinking on duty on pain of beheading, a fate he dramatized by lopping a blossom from a wild-growing rose bush with a quick sweep of his bared blade.

"As for you, young fellow," he said, turning his attention to O'Leary, "if by any chance you should fail in your sacred mission, your fate will be no less dire, though slower."

"Where's Marv?" O'Leary demanded, ignoring the threat.

"Oh, yes, poor Marv," the General echoed. "I seem to recall that I turned him over to my PPS for a friendly chat. Hark! That's him now, I don't doubt," he interrupted himself as hoarse screams echoed from the middle distance.

"Free him," Lafayette ordered. "He's my partner, and he goes with me. By the way, where am I supposed to find this Duke Bother-Be-Damned?"

"Not at all a bad idea, O'Leary," Frodolkin said expansively. "I shall take it under advisement. Meanwhile, I'll do as you suggest. Oh, Percy!" he concluded with a yell. There was a crashing in the underbrush and a short, roly-poly fellow wearing a soiled leather blacksmith's apron appeared, dashing sweat from his brow.

"Yeah, boss?" he said in an anxious tone, his small beady eyes flicking to O'Leary. "A new client, eh?

Swell. Just gimme a minute to fan old Marv and put Band-Aids on his hurties. He was a stubborn cuss, but he finely spilled the beans. You better keep a eye out for a ruffian name of Old Eerie or Something, which Marv says he's planning to pull one o' them cooze-like. You know, worm his way inta yer worship's confidence, then turn the tables. Seems like he's got a lotta magical gear stashed in the Tower yonder, which he can turn hisself inta a big bird and all."

"Thank you, Percy, a succinct report," the general replied blandly. "Now you may bring Marv into the presence. Conscious, mind you." He turned a stern eye on Lafayette. "So," he murmured, "you plot treachery, eh? You disappoint me, lad; I'd great plans for you."

"I haven't plotted anything." Lafayette demurred. "I don't even know which way is up yet. All I want is to find Daphne—but I don't suppose she's here anyway," he concluded hopelessly.

"I assure you, she is not," Frodolkin said firmly. "You may as well abandon that fantasy. After your triumphal return, you shall have second choice, after only myself, of the nubile wenches of the region, which I hear the Duke's got a nice little seraglio of his own."

"I don't want a seraglio, I just want Daphne," O'Leary replied doggedly. "And if I'm going to kidnap this duke for you, I'd better get started." He rose, brushing leaf mold from his seat. "Do I get any weapons or supplies?" he inquired, "or do I just walk into his armed camp and bring him out barehanded and eat when I get back?"

"That's the idea, lad," Frodolkin concurred smoothly. "I knew you'd know how to go about it. His camp is sort of in that direction," he added, pointing vaguely. "I wouldn't send a man out unbriefed," he explained. "Only about half a day's walk, if you avoid the bog, of course."

"Don't you think you ought to give me some sort of ID?" Lafayette inquired, "so I don't get scragged by your own troops along the way."

"No need, Al. Just tell them you're under my personal protection. But mind you stay clear of ambushes and the like."

"And when I get back, you'll let me go back into the Tower, right?" Lafayette specified, starting off uncertainly in the direction indicated.

"To be sure, dear boy," Frodolkin agreed absently. "Though I, for one, couldn't be dragged in there by wild Caucasian ponies. Still, I suppose you have your magical apparatus stored there, eh?"

"It's not that," Lafayette demurred, heading for a trail which seemed to lead more or less in the direction Frodolkin had indicated. "It's just that the lab's my sole link with Artesia—and my only hope of getting back to wherever I left poor Daphne stranded, with Central's help of course—unless Allegorus has other ideas. I don't really trust that slicker. Well, bye, I'm off."

"So you are, lad, but on such a mission as yours, perhaps a trifle of brain-fever will be more help than hindrance." He waved carelessly, nearly nicking Mike, who had regained his feet and was muttering to himself, scowling after Lafayette.

"Oh, hi, boss," Marv's voice called blurrily as Marv himself staggered from a side path to fall in beside O'Leary. "I give Percy a bum steer," he confided. "Tole him you could turn yourself into a big bird, and all. Sure you don't wanta try it?" His tone was wheedling. Lafayette ignored the suggestion and forged ahead along the poorly defined trail.